Since Ron Paul is now hovering near the top of several polls, it's time for reporters and his detractors to dig up some new way to characterize him. (I do not, by the way, presume that reporters and detractors are the same thing.) The current bit of possible humiliation is that newsletters he published in the past contained a lot of racist drivel, some of which he might have written, none of which he disavowed.
Is this stuff relevant today? If you're looking for reasons to not vote for Ron Paul, sure. People looking for reasons to not vote for Barack Obama sure made a lot out of his past associations with Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright, inflating those relationships way past any bounds of reality. But I'm always a little suspicious when you have to dig into a candidate's past to argue he's not fit for public office. I'd rather see the case made with facts from, say, the current century.
Ron Paul is not going to be his party's nominee anyway. Hardcore Republicans by and large are not going to get behind a guy who's so committed to State's Rights. They want the federal government to stop any state from legalizing drugs, sanctioning Gay Marriage and/or making abortion more accessible. They also don't want a president who would err on the side of not going to war if there seems to be anything resembling a reason. Newt Gingrich understands this which is why he said he'd make John Bolton his Secretary of State. That's code for "And I'll never miss an opportunity to bomb other countries." Newt is losing steam but not because of that. I think the main reason he's going down in the polls is because Republicans are seeing how happy a Gingrich nomination would make Barney Frank.